His List
by stress
Summary: Henry's list was identical to the wedding's guest list in every way but two: his list was in a very specific order, and one particular guest was noticeably missing. Set pre-series. Oneshot. Companion to "Last Minute Corrections".


Disclaimer: _The characters in this story are the property of CBS and are only used for fan related purposes. _

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**His List**

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Henry Dunn was just finishing up the final touches on his list when his fiancée found him sitting at his desk, hard at work. Her expensive perfume preceded her, and he had just enough time to put his pen down before Trish Wellington's slender arms were wrapped lovingly around his shoulders.

"I knew I'd find you in here, Henry," she said, mock-scolding, lowering her mouth so that she could speak directly into his ear. "What have you been doing, holed up in here all night? I've missed you."

Quickly slipping into the comfortable role of the soon-to-be groom, Henry leaned back into her embrace. "I'm just doing some work on the guest list."

"Mmm… really? Didn't we already finish it?"

"We did," he assured her. "I guess I just wanted to make sure I have a copy of my own."

"Okay then, Mr. Prepared. I'll help you. Let me see…" Ticking off the names on her fingers, nuzzling her cheek against his neck, Henry felt her breath tickle as she counted, "There's Daddy and Katherine, Shea, Richard and Madison, Beth and Lucy—"

"And Gigi," interrupted Henry with a grin, though the pampered white lapdog wasn't on this particular list. He had to draw the line _somewhere_.

"Gigi _is _people," Trish agreed with a quick laugh. Then, to Henry's chagrin, she continued to list off names. "So Chloe is coming and she's bringing her Cal… you know she insisted… and there's your friends, of course."

He nodded, feeling a momentary tug of remorse at her choice of words. But his performance never faltered and he grinned. "Can't find better groomsmen than those guys."

Trish purposely chose to ignore his comment. As far as she was concerned, Danny, Malcolm and Booth were all right, but she was hesitant to let Sully around her friends again—especially for a weeklong destination wedding. Emotions would be running high enough and she wouldn't put it past him to take advantage of the girls if he could. She knew how Henry's best man could be, and from firsthand experience, too.

Shaking her head, pushing thoughts of Sully away, she remembered, "Oh, and there's also your brother and your uncle."

Henry's eyes were drawn back to the paper, pulled towards Uncle Marty's name at the top of the list and then down to J.D.'s somewhere in the middle. Knowing it was necessary, he found himself nodding again. "Well, I think that's it. That's everyone."

"No, wait. Look. You forgot to put Abby's name down on your list," she pointed out, reaching over his shoulder and tapping her fingernail against the sheet of paper.

Pretending to be surprised, Henry ran his eyes over the writing again—it never hurt to double check, or even triple check—though he knew that Trish was right. He hadn't meant to write Abby's name. Still, he turned his head so that he was looking behind him and placed a gentle, chaste kiss against her cheek. "Thanks, Trish. What would I do without you?"

Trish laughed a coy little laugh, squeezing him gently with a quick, enamored hug as she straightened up. "Let's hope we'll never have to find out," she told him, tossing one of her winning smiles in his direction. It made her face light up; she looked even more beautiful than usual. The excitement for the upcoming wedding, he noticed, was giving her quite the glow.

Henry shared another smile with her, picking up his pen again. He was poised to put the tip back to the paper, but he waited until Trish had blown him a kiss before heading out of the room. As the bride, she had enough to do of her own, he knew.

And Henry had his list to tend to.

He thought about that as he tapped the capped end of his pen against his palm of his hand. As he'd had reason to think many times before, Trish was smart and could be very observant. A quick look at his list had made her curious, and he shuddered to think what would happen if Trish caught on to his plan before she should.

There was a slight frown on his boyishly handsome face as he drew a circle around two names and inverted their position on his list. If he wanted Trish's quick wit and tendency to notice everything not to play an important role in his plan, he needed to take advantage of her weaknesses.

Thomas Wellington's name moved up a few spots on the list.

Very nearly satisfied with what he had written, he remembered the innocent way that she mentioned his negligence regarding Abby Mills' name on this particular list. He would never get the chance to tell his poor fiancée the truth, but the reason this very list was drafted was the same reason why he couldn't add Abby's name to it.

Still, Henry knew there was another name he had forgotten. And, with a hand that shook for half of a second before he started to write, he added one last victim to the list he needed to bring with him to Harper's Island:

_Trish Wellington_.

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Author's Note: _Just like my other oneshot, "Last Minute Corrections", I thought it might be interesting to think more about how Henry was preparing himself for what he was going to do on Harper's Island. Of course, all my wondering means that eventually I'm going to want to explore it more fully and create something a little longer, but, for now, these little snippets are fun for me to write. I hope you guys like them as much as I do working on them :) And make sure to check out my Jimmy/Abby WIP, "Fire and Rain". Once I get that off the ground some, I have a couple of ideas about a Henry-based multichapter fic set during the season (including another oneshot that I'm about one-third of the way done with). I just want to work a little on the future before I get back to the past ;) _


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